What is it with hotels & false fire alarms? I am staying at a hotel, when a fire alarm goes off, at least once a year and so far they have always been false. This happened last time couple of months ago. If you have had a good or bad compensation experience, just drop me an email. I will post the best ones in coming weeks.

LoyaltyLobby reader sent me an email about unfortunate incident at a newly opened Holiday Inn Express hotel in Rotterdam – Central Station on June 25. Multiple fire alarms had gone off between 10PM and 1AM. Guests staying at the hotel had to evacuate twice and obviously no one could sleep.

Dear Mr. LoyaltyLobby reader,

First of all, we offer you our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience caused by the fire / evacuation alarm during your stay with us last Tuesday, June 25.

We were dealing with a false alarm. In case of a false alarm, it is important to disarm the alarm as soon as possible. In this particularly case, we unfortunately had to deal with several, individual alarms. Therefore it took our team longer than usual to reset the system. We are very sorry this happened and took the actions that were needed to avoid this from occurring again in the future.

Of course, we discussed the situation with our Managers and Engineering Departments and decided to offer you a compensation for this overnight stay in our hotel.

We are more than happy to invite you for a complementary night in Holiday Inn Express Rotterdam – Central Station. If you are not travelling to Rotterdam again in the near future, we can invoke the room night for you. Please advise us which compensation is most desirable for you.

Furthermore, we thank you for your stay in Holiday Inn Express Rotterdam – Central Station and are looking forward to welcome you again.

If there is anything else we can do for you, please do not hesitate to contact us at any time.

Met vriendelijke groet / With kind regards,

Arris H

Deputy Manager

So, the hotel was offering a free night in the future or waive the charges for the night. I think that this was a very nice gesture from the hotel for the inconvenience that the guest had to endure. It also seems that they are taking full responsibility for the faulty fire alarms that went off several times.

Conclusion

I think that it was good that the hotel contacted guests proactively and offering compensation unsolicited. It seems that this hotel care about their guests and I wouldn’t hesitate to stay there.

These false fire alarms are really a problem at hotels. When I hear one going off, I just tend to call the front desk to see what is going on that likely would not be the right choice if there really is a fire somewhere.